MotherhootTrying to find humor in today's crazy world.2015-03-21T00:47:20Zhttp://motherhoot.com/blog1/?feed=atomWordPressSusie Klinehttp://www.motherhoot.comhttp://motherhoot.com/blog1/?p=74522015-03-21T00:47:20Z2015-03-21T00:47:20ZCan’t they ever do one thing without kissing the ass of big business? President Obama asks for some transparency of the chemicals used in fracking on America’s public lands and Republicans freak out, introduce a bill lickety split. Big oil starts filing law suits. [source] These are the same Republicans who can’t do anything else in a…

Can’t they ever do one thing without kissing the ass of big business? President Obama asks for some transparency of the chemicals used in fracking on America’s public lands and Republicans freak out, introduce a bill lickety split. Big oil starts filing law suits. [source]

These are the same Republicans who can’t do anything else in a timely manner. But this, they managed to get behind at warp speed.

Good god, can we have something to save for our great grandchildren? Some sort of world they can inhabit?

]]>0Susie Klinehttp://www.motherhoot.comhttp://motherhoot.com/blog1/?p=74432015-02-15T01:45:46Z2015-02-15T01:45:46ZI cannot hold my tongue any longer. I’m going to wade into the mayhem that has been caused by the mess of a book Fifty Shades of Grey. But let’s be clear: I have not read it. Why? I have several reasons: Life is to short to read bad books and I heard this sucked.…

]]>I cannot hold my tongue any longer. I’m going to wade into the mayhem that has been caused by the mess of a book Fifty Shades of Grey. But let’s be clear: I have not read it. Why? I have several reasons:

Life is to short to read bad books and I heard this sucked.

I prefer my erotica in short story form, not in a 3-volume monstrosity.

I am scratch-your-eyes-out jealous that EL James made a fortune on this dreck of Twilight fan fiction.

I began by enjoying the distress the movie was stirring up. The endless trailers on television were becoming mind-numbing. The cool version of Beyonce’s Crazy in Love began to grate. The sex toys sold in Target on the main aisle were slightly alarming to my suburban mom senses; cock rings and blind folds, anyone? They’re right here near the clementines and the razors! I didn’t quite get the grey nail polish in the OPI collection. Grey nails, really?

When people from the BDSM community started speaking out about the inaccuracies in the book about their lifestyle, I perked up a bit. What I know about them I know from lurking on the sidelines. Way on the sidelines. I’m the short girl at the back of the crowd, trying to see over the sea of people, watching what’s happening in the BDSM community. When they were issuing warnings and setting people straight, I listened. I thought they had a good message.

When Kirk Cameron shared a Christian woman’s warning against the movie as being against God and husbands. I mocked. I mocked loudly and boisterously. Bwahahahaha. It’s a movie people!

But when the other warnings started coming out, I began feeling uneasy. Abuse. Control. Abusive relationships. Not healthy. Unrealistic. Can’t save him. Can’t change him.

Then it suddenly hit me. No one trusts the young women of today enough to make their own damn decisions about their own damn lives! Every group is up in arms about young women seeing this movie, falling under the spell of Ana and Christian, walking out of the theater into the arms of the first man they see, and allowing themselves to be abused for the rest of their lives!

What the ever loving fuck?!

It’s a movie people. And except for the BDSM community and the Christian women, the rest of you really have no valid voice in this argument. Because young women today are quite mature enough to make the distinction between a healthy and unhealthy relationship.

I’m using myself as proof of this. In the eight grade I read the novel Scruples. (I also highlighted every sex scene for the entire class and shared it.) It was also a television mini-series. It was filled with sex of every imaginable kind. I have never been in a physically abusive relationship. I learned what glory holes were, and that married people cheated on their spouses. Guess what, I also learned that married people cheated on their spouses in real life–still haven’t done it ever in my marriage(s).

I also read Rosemary Rogers and Sidney Sheldon. Lots of hot fudge sunday sex in these authors’ works. (I figure if vanilla sex is boring than the opposite is hot fudge sunday sex.) Still not reenacting those sex scenes either. Women were regularly degraded and physically and emotionally abused. Again, not happening here. Because I know the difference between fact and fiction.

I also have never seen a pirate ship, even though one appears in Goonies, my favorite movie. I’ve never been swept off my feet by a rock star as a hundred women have in books I’ve read. I’ve never seen a zombie, although I watch people fight them off every Sunday night.

I wonder why article after article has come out, begging people to not go see the movie Fifty Shades of Grey? What is it about this movie that has people convinced it will be the end of womanhood? Do these authors truly believe young women will see the movie and throw away everything they know about healthy relationships? If it only takes a vapid movie based on a vapid book to completely ruin someone’s life, they weren’t too firmly entrenched in reality to begin with.

Or does it go deeper than that? Is there so little confidence in this generation of women that they truly need to be saved? If you think that, then you need to take a step back and consider who died and put you in charge. Because no one made you the world’s mother. Young women today are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, making decisions, and sorting out their lives on their own.

And if that means they sacrifice the $10 to go see drivel such as Fifty Shades, than so be it. I’m going to make fun of them for doing it. But I’m not going to coddle and host an intervention to save their psyches from the upcoming bad relationship you believe they are destined to be in. I know they can handle anything that comes their way. And you should too.

]]>1Susie Klinehttp://www.motherhoot.comhttp://motherhoot.com/blog1/?p=74392015-02-02T01:58:31Z2015-02-02T01:58:31ZI’ve been thinking about the woman giving up yoga pants so men won’t lust after her. (I asked Jim if he noticed women in yoga pants, and he didn’t know what yoga pants were. I showed him pictures then knew, just not the name.) I love when women take one for the team, trying to…

Rick Springfield, in concert, December 10, 2010, at Joe’s on Weeds in Chicago

I’ve been thinking about the woman giving up yoga pants so men won’t lust after her. (I asked Jim if he noticed women in yoga pants, and he didn’t know what yoga pants were. I showed him pictures then knew, just not the name.) I love when women take one for the team, trying to destroy all the lust in society one Lululemon garment at a time.

Except…women have lustful thoughts too. Oops! Did I just let the cat out of the bag?!

For me, straight leg jeans and white gym shoes make me sit up and take notice. White shirt and tie, oh yeah! Short dark hair and glasses, a la Republican bad boy? Dear God! (Naturally a real Republican would get kicked to the curb, you understand.)

These articles always seem to gloss over the fact that women have sexual urges too. That women can lust for men. We’re treated like asexual creatures without a feeling in our bodies. I know the myth is that women aren’t visual creatures when it comes to sex, but I have to disagree. Just the reaction from the Rick Springfield fan club tells me something different! Hey, women aren’t watching Magic Mike for the engrossing plot.

Mature people look, admire, and move along. It’s like going to an art museum. You linger in front of the Degas, hurry passed the PIcassos, consider the Matisses, then head home. You don’t have to touch them. You don’t need to spend quality time with them. You know they exist, you appreciate them, and are glad.

Sometimes the argument for modest dress is the rape argument. Goodness, cover yourselves or you deserve to be raped because your skirt is too short…your top is too low…your blouse is too tight…your makeup too bright… I’ve got news for you, ditching the yoga pants and other sinful clothing isn’t going to get rid rape and abuse by men. Because rape has nothing to with sex. Power. Rage. Control. Rage. That’s what’s behind rape.

That’s why women wearing yoga pants get raped, just like women wearing flannel nightgowns, burkhas, and jeans get raped. Or babies in diapers. Or boys and men in jeans and shorts. It doesn’t matter what you wear; rape could happen.

Go ahead and control your own lustful thoughts. That’s all you can do about lust.

As for your children? Teach your daughters self-respect and common sense. Let them know men and women are equal. Women deserve a man’s respect. Teach your sons that men and women are equal. Teach them no means no. Teach both of them the signs of an abusive relationship and that it’s okay to come to you for help any time. Before it’s too late.

]]>1Susie Klinehttp://www.motherhoot.comhttp://motherhoot.com/blog1/?p=74302015-01-10T02:32:45Z2015-01-07T01:46:52ZThis year’s Manifesto is much less ambitious than last year’s. I pictured myself by this time being a savvy political writer, known far and wide for her wit and snark. Admired by many, hated by many, yet respected for my spot-on observations. What actually happened? I’ve been called a bully, dumb ass, stupid… Bully was the…

]]>This year’s Manifesto is much less ambitious than last year’s. I pictured myself by this time being a savvy political writer, known far and wide for her wit and snark. Admired by many, hated by many, yet respected for my spot-on observations.

What actually happened? I’ve been called a bully, dumb ass, stupid… Bully was the first insult and it hit me really hard. By the time dumb ass and stupid rolled around I was used to it and shrugged it off. In some way, it felt good by then.

I don’t have the chops for being an activist. I need results. Clear and measurable results. I don’t want to write the same things over and over twenty different ways, without seeing things change. I don’t have the patience for that. God bless the true activists though, because they are a patient and hardy lot and should be admired and thanked by the rest of us for doing the thankless job of activism!

Also, I am not the stupid whisperer. I cannot make people see reality nor logic. I cannot make people turn off FOX News (lord, I hate typing those two words together; further proof I cannot be a political writer) and check out other sources. Hell, the state of Kansas is in dire straits and they re-elected the man who put them there! That’s the kind of crazy thinking I can’t handle.

Beyond being unable to deal with the tedium, no results, and other people, I didn’t like what delving into politics was doing to me as a person. I was becoming morose and depressed. I was losing sight of the good in people and only seeing bad. I was losing optimism and greeting pessimism. I didn’t like Me very much. (This all happened by March, I think…apparently I am not very hardy or resilient…)

I woke up to the insane side of activism when I found myself reading a blog by someone who hates a television show. Yet every week she watches said television show and writes a critique of it. Just to prove how terrible it truly is. Who does that? Who has time to do that? Who punishes themselves like that? Who reads that crap?! I unsubscribed and got my life back!

I do have a 2015 Manifesto. I want equality for all people. Men. Women. Gay. Straight. Atheist. Religious. Activists. Non-activists. I want our Earth and all creatures–flora and fauna–on it taken care of in anticipation of future generations.

I will still write about politics but with the wit and snark that I do best. It’s a Republican-controlled Congress people, there’s bound to be lots of material coming at a speed faster than light. I’m also getting into some other things that I’ll let you in on as they get further developed.

Hang in there…the fun is about to begin…again. Maybe I’ll tell you why I got called a dumb ass. It totally explains what’s wrong with the Democratic party, by the way!

]]>0Susie Klinehttp://www.motherhoot.comhttp://motherhoot.com/blog1/?p=74222014-12-24T22:46:13Z2014-12-09T23:12:52ZI checked this book out from the public library. Huh, I don’t really know what to say about this book. I know I was excited about it. After reading Mr. Mercedes earlier this year, I was pumped up for more Stephen King. I read a review that said this was really scary. I kept waiting…

Huh, I don’t really know what to say about this book. I know I was excited about it. After reading Mr. Mercedes earlier this year, I was pumped up for more Stephen King. I read a review that said this was really scary.

I kept waiting for the scary part. Waiting and waiting. I had a few pages left and I knew it wasn’t coming. I was disappointed.

Revival tells the story of the Morton family through the eyes of Son Jamie. As a young child of six, he’s the first to meet the new minister in town, Charles Jacobs, and they form a bond that will carry them over decades. But not before tragedy strikes their families.

Revival is a decent story. Jamie is a likable character. Flawed, just like I like them. I enjoyed his life story. After all, Stephen King tells a tale better than anyone else.

But this just lacked zip. I didn’t get the frisson of fear when I shut the book at night. I wasn’t afraid to turn out the lights. I didn’t look into the shadows wondering what was lurking.

This isn’t the worst book or the best book. It wouldn’t be a total waste of your time to read it. Just don’t plan on being scared. Because this isn’t It or The Shining caliber material.

No, I’m not here to do a blanket bashing of Velveeta. It has it’s place on the culinary continuum. Mixed with salsa or Rotel tomatoes, in the crockpot, served with tortilla chips. Who can resist? By the way, I’m partial to the On The Border tortilla chips these days.

A pound of Velveeta also brings a pound of hamburger and a pound of pork sausage together nicely in Alpo. Best served on rye bread, but crackers and chips will also do.

It can top chili. Or a hamburger. But it should never top the broccoli and rice casserole at Thanksgiving dinner.

Add another vegetable to the table, I thought. Green bean casserole isn’t enough, I pondered. I think broccoli and rice sounds really good.

So I took to Pinterest to look for a good recipe. And found the one with Velveeta. I’ve made it in the past, we all liked it. How nice it would be to shake things up this year! Other recipes required more work, like chopping of extraneous vegetables and sauteeing. The casserole with Velveeta did not.

Jim came home with the Velveeta and I immediately was on the attack: “You were supposed to get a pound of it.”

Kids, Velveeta is so dense that a pound of it is about three inches square! We just stared at it in wonder. We could attack burglars with it! If we accidentally dropped it, a tiny dog could be wounded!

I was wary as I prepared the casserole. So little broccoli. So little rice. So very much Velveeta mixed with cream of mushroom soup. I skipped the melted stick of butter to be poured over the top. Good call!

When dinner was served we all stared at the broccoli and rice casserole. With the first bite you knew that this was not a dish meant to be served on a day of big eating. This is a dish meant to be served with an anemic chicken breast. Because with one bite you were instantly full.

Amazingly, incredibly full. This might be the cure to world hunger!

I’m going to be working on the broccoli and rice casserole recipe. It needs some tweeking. Serious tweeking.

I wonder if my inability to digest Velveeta properly is another sign I’m getting old? Or just a reflection on Velveeta?

]]>1Susie Klinehttp://www.motherhoot.comhttp://motherhoot.com/blog1/?p=74042014-12-03T21:37:29Z2014-11-20T01:38:58ZJust stop buying into the idea that you aren't supposed to feel these negative emotions. You're human. These are human emotions. Embrace them. You need them to be fully human. Take the good with the bad and live...

We, as women, have been taught that feeling the “bad” feelings is wrong. We aren’t supposed to be mad, bad, jealous, bitter, pissy…we’re supposed to be smiling, polite, forgiving, accommodating creatures.

So we don’t have a lot of experience when we reallyfeel the bad things. It takes us by surprise. And we panic. We need to give ourselves permission to feel it, to express it, to let it take over, to give it life.

All it is is an emotion. And there is no BAD emotion. Emotions are just emotions. They are neutral. Actions are good things and bad things. It’s when emotions fester beneath the surface for too long that they lead to bad actions and we end up hurting ourselves or someone else.

So feel your feelings. Do what you need to. Yell. Scream. Beat a pillow. Write a letter. Tell a friend.

Happy. Sad. Jealous. Overwhelmed. Find your safe space and use it. You can’t survive this life without it.

Just stop buying into the idea that you aren’t supposed to feel these negative emotions. You’re human. These are human emotions. Embrace them. You need them to be fully human. Take the good with the bad and live…

]]>0Susie Klinehttp://www.motherhoot.comhttp://motherhoot.com/blog1/?p=73982014-10-22T22:04:46Z2014-10-22T22:04:46Z Seems Mitch needs to pay people to pose as enthusiastic supporters at his campaign functions. Very interesting… [source] What do you think about this? A sign of desperation or a very good political move?

]]>0Susie Klinehttp://www.motherhoot.comhttp://motherhoot.com/blog1/?p=73882014-10-08T00:56:45Z2014-10-09T12:08:21ZThere’s a common ground writers and readers share — the operative word in this case being “share.” Both love sharing a good story and losing (and finding) themselves in something that seems larger, or at least a little more exciting, than everyday life. The act of telling a story and listening to a story is…

]]>There’s a common ground writers and readers share — the operative word in this case being “share.” Both love sharing a good story and losing (and finding) themselves in something that seems larger, or at least a little more exciting, than everyday life. The act of telling a story and listening to a story is an intimate act of sharing between a writer and their audience.

It was this desire to share a story with others, connect with them, and make them laugh that prompted me to write Bad Taste In Men.

Who’s Gonna Tell It Like It Is?

As an avid reader of everything from horror novels to funny chick lit to Harry Potter, I know how important it is to lose yourself in the story. To find a character – whether it’s the main protagonist or a supporting player – that you identify with to help make that story all the more real. To find a few other characters that make you say, “Dude! I know someone exactly like that!”,and add another element of reality to a work of fiction.

I’m generally a pretty happy, upbeat person — but I have a snarky and cynical side, too. As much as I want to believe in pixie dust, happy endings, and $9.99 all-you-can-eat buffets that don’t make you want to hurl two hours later, I know that these things don’t always exist.

Yet, in nearly every novel I read, somehow, through some twist of fate, the main character always fox trots into the sunset with the man of her dreams — sometimes to selections from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack.

In real life, it doesn’t always work that way. Cinderella doesn’t always get to go to the ball and not every girl “gets the guy” at the end of the story. It was this sentiment that inspired me to write Bad Taste In Men. Well, that and the fact that, as someone who came of age in the ’90s, I’ve been experiencing an odd sense of déjà vu in seeing the trappings of my youth co-opted by this new generation of hipster whippersnappers. Why not show ‘em how young adult angst and unrequited love were really done in the analog era?

Making An Emotional Connection

Whether you listened to depressing ditties by The Cure on your Walkman or cry along to Adele on your iPod Shuffle, the feelings that accompany unrequited love are still the same regardless of the year you’re experiencing them.

Let’s face it. How many of us have been 100% lucky in love? We’ve all either dated – or been turned down by – our fair share of losers. Usually, it’s not until later on that we realize that rejection was probably for the best when a new and better opportunity presents itself. You throw yourself a little pity party, find the humor in the situation, and then move on to your next adventure.

At its core, fiction provides a world that readers can escape into, but it also offers us a safe house for our emotions. Pick up any book you love and you’ll recognize something inside it that resonates strongly with you and your own life situation.

Regardless of whether you grew up in the ’90s or are pounding pavement on the dating scene today in 2014, uncomfortable feelings and emotions – and sorting through them with a sense of humor – are timeless. Those feelings are part of what makes us human and, as a writer, made me want to create something to reach out to that 30-something woman who got stood up on a blind date or that 15-year-old guy who just got turned down by his crush to let them know that, it may not seem like it now, but it will be okay in the future… And that they may even laugh about that rejection down the line.

About the Author

Lana Cooper was born and raised in Scranton, PA and currently resides in Philadelphia. A graduate of Temple University, she doesn’t usually talk about herself in the first person, but makes an exception when writing an author bio. Cooper has written extensively on a variety of pop culture topics and has been a critic for such sites as PopMatters and Ghouls On Film. She’s also written news stories for EDGE Media, a leading nationwide network devoted to LGBT news and issues. Cooper enjoys spending time with her family, reading comic books, books with lots of words and no pictures, and avoiding eye-contact with strangers on public transportation. Bad Taste In Men is her first full-length novel.

Have you ever felt like even Mother Theresa has got more game than you?

If you have, you’d be in the same boat as geeky, awkward metalhead Nova Porter.

Bad Taste In Men follows Nova from her prepubescent years through young adulthood and her attempts at getting dudes to dig her.

Juggling self-esteem issues, small town outsider status, and questionable taste in guys, Nova is looking for love in all the wrong places – like the food court at the mall. Nova’s circle of friends and her strange(ly) endearing family more than make up for what her love life lacks.

Along the way, Nova alternately plays the roles of hero and villain, mastermind and stooge; picking up far more valuable life lessons than numbers for her little black book.

One part chick lit for tomboys and one part Freaks and Geeks for kids who came of age in the mid-’90s, Bad Taste In Men is loaded (like a freight train) with pop cultural references and crude humor.

From getting laughed at by your crush to being stood up (twice!) by a guy with one eye, Bad Taste In Men showcases the humor and humiliation that accompanies the search for love (or at least “like”) as a small-town teenage outcast, managing to wring heart-warming sweetness from angsty adolescent memories – and jokes about barf and poop.

]]>2Susie Klinehttp://www.motherhoot.comhttp://motherhoot.com/blog1/?p=73822014-09-12T03:11:05Z2014-09-12T03:00:44ZToday I remember 9/11 by refusing to be maudlin, sharing sadness, and fright. I say a prayer for all those lost and their families. But I will no longer let this day be used as one to frighten me into supporting a congress determined to support war mongers and the war industry. I’ve given up…

]]>Today I remember 9/11 by refusing to be maudlin, sharing sadness, and fright. I say a prayer for all those lost and their families. But I will no longer let this day be used as one to frighten me into supporting a congress determined to support war mongers and the war industry.

I’ve given up enough for the terrorists they use as boogeymen to keep us compliant and quiet as they allocate billions of dollars for the military while real life people living in our country do without.

I let myself be pat down and x-rayed before getting onto an airplane. My bags are searched before I go into the courthouse. The NSA reads my emails and records my phone calls and it’s probably ok because I might be a terrorist. I can randomly be locked up in jail without due process because I might be a terrorist,

I refuse to be scared anymore. I refuse to share my story of that day anymore. I will pray for the dead. They sacrificed their lives in a war we didn’t know we were fighting. A war we’re never going to stop fighting if we don’t stand up and yell, “Stop! This has got to stop!”

We can remember without being scared. We can remember without sacrificing freedoms. We can remember and change things. We can remember and make things better for the people living right here.

But as long as we’re scared and stay under the terrorist boogeyman threat, the war mongers win. When we elect people who love war, not constituents. Who love tanks, not text books. Who prefer killing innocent foreign people more than housing our country’s homeless. Who don’t mind killing the children of the 99%.

I pray for those who died on 9/11. I pray for those who keep milking that day for their greed.